In Part 1, I wrote about Brett Andersen of “Suede” and “The Tears”. My guitarist Jason and I both agree that most artists gone solo are not as good as when they were with the band (with some exceptions of course) but look, not that the band “The Cranberries” was going anywhere except down. I love their first album and perhaps the second one. “Wake Up And Smell The Coffee”? Just not my cup of tea.
The first two tracks of Dolores O’Rriordan’s “Are You Listening?” are very attractive. It has all the trademarks of the early Cranberries that I like. If you are a Cranberries fan, it is hard not to fall in love with the opening tracks. The downside is, her singing has gone a bit … weird. I don’t think my bassist Cynthia can get pass some of the songs. However, one afternoon I was with my buddy Ken at Mama Africa (a pub in Raffles Place) and they were playing this album. To be frank, “Are You Listening?” is quite a good CD to play when you are chilling out with your friends. Since then I have been listening the album and somehow her singing doesn’t bother me that much anymore.
There are quite a number of good tracks inside this album … very Cranberries style. Like the songs “Ordinary Day” (featured below), “When We Were Young”, “Angel Fire”, “Ecstasy”, and my favorite “October”. All the songs are written by Dolores O’Riordan inspired by her personal life – which explains why it has a mixed of darkness (her previous band and deaths) and lightness (her new baby). Her new band – all seems to have issues of their own except one – appears to be able to play some of the very unique Cranberries tricks (especially the drum) that the resemblance is haunting. Yet this new assemble manages to breath new creativity into the songs. It is an album worth checking out … if you can get pass her new way of singing that is (more glaring from the 3rd song onwards for some I can imagine … my advice is to do a thorough sampling of the entire album).